China awards visitation rights to gay mom in historic first

In a legal first, China has granted visitation rights to a gay mom separated from her daughter for four years.

The woman, identified by her nickname Didi, married her wife in the U.S. in 2016, according to reporting by the Guardian. Later that year, the couple underwent IVF treatment with embryos made from the wife’s eggs and donor sperm implanted in both women.

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In 2017, Didi gave birth to a girl and her wife gave birth to a boy, both linked genetically only to Didi’s wife.

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Back in China, the pair separated in 2019 and Didi’s wife took the two children and cut off contact with Didi.

Didi went to court seeking joint custody of both children. It was the first time that courts in China have been confronted with a same-sex couple’s custody dispute.

Same-sex marriages aren’t recognized in China. Chinese law has an “avoidance approach” to LGBTQ+ relationships, said Gao Mingyue, Didi’s lawyer. The country’s civil code and marriage law assume that a child will be born to a heterosexual, married household and “does not clearly define the rights of same-sex couples.”

But since China abandoned its one-child policy in 2016 in the face of quickly declining birth rates, the courts are now inclined to protect the rights of children born outside the traditional heterosexual paradigm. Children born to unmarried couples and single and LGBTQ+ parents are experiencing a level of acceptance unknown in China in the past.

Four years after her wife abandoned her, Didi was granted monthly visits with her daughter — but not her son. While not genetically related to either child, the court gave weight to Didi carrying her daughter to term.

In July, Didi traveled from Shanghai to Beijing to visit her now-seven-year-old daughter. “I think maybe she still remembers me,” she said, adding the separation had been “heartbreaking.”

The moment was bittersweet, she said, because she was denied a visit with her son, as well. Nevertheless, her lawyer called the court decision in her favor a “big step forward.”

A new survey conducted in China by the Williams Institute at UCLA found that 85% of respondents had favorable attitudes about same-sex parents, while nearly 90% supported the concept of same-sex marriage.

It goes to prove, said Didi’s lawyer, that “the law should catch up” with a more progressive Chinese public.

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